Solo Trip ...

I took a couple of days off to rest from 12 hour days at work the past couple of weeks. Made some time to go geocaching, the perfect way to get away!

Eglin Air Force Base has portions open to the public with a recreation permit. These parts of the reservation are full of geocaches!! Let's go!

It was a chilly day, and once I got under the shade of the forest, it was much colder. But it felt refreshing. This first cache of the day was inside of an old hollow tree. As I was walking up to it, I heard a loud noise about 50 yards from me, like an animal shaking a tree. I jumped about 50 feet in the air. Didn't see what it was, but I didn't hear it again. I snagged this cache, snapped a picture and took off!

Just because you have a GPSr, doesn't mean it's the best way to get to a geocache, as I found out. The GPSr was pointing about .20 of a mile from the "treasure" location. So I took a hike about 500 yards. Up large inclines, down steep hills. It wasn't a straight and easy path. After about 450 yards I see a road. Another 50 yards from the road was the cache. Yes, I could've taken a different road and only had to walk 50 yards. But, geocaching is more about the journey than the destination!! Plus, I would not have walked by the pond or heard the creek nearby going the "easy" way.

I went up the road a ways and found the coolest Geocache location yet. According to this cache owner's site, it was an old whiskey still from the 1920's that was built by the US Government! It was never completed, but the ruins of what they built still remain. It was down a very wooded path. Once the GPSr said I had arrived, I didn't see anything, until I walked a little closer in the woods. It jumped out at me! It was very eerie and very cool!! I had to take a self-portrait of me sitting by it.

After a few smaller locations, I headed back to the house. What a ton of fun today! See you on the next adventure!

Ain't No Ticks On Me! Errr... Anymore!

On a day that was, according to the weather man, cloudy and rainy, was in fact sunny and beautiful... let's go geocaching! We thought we needed a change and scenery, so we packed a picnic and headed to Pensacola. Stopped by Walmart for some $1.99 gas and what do you know, there was a geocache nearby. After the quick grab and go, we headed west for some treasure hunting!

We wanted to go somewhere unique, so we stopped by Bay Bluff park off of Scenic Hwy. Why is it called a bluff? Because the land just drops off into the ocean! Straight down the stairs we went looking for a picnic table. Come to find out there were to tables around, it was just a walking trial. So we jumped the fence and made our own spot. We watched people go by, watched the train go by about 50 yards in front of us, and watch Mason eat a sandwich with a little bit of sand top. Mmm...grain-y. Took a little stroll on the train tracks... playing chicken with the train... just kidding!


We headed back up the cliff... easier said than done. You find out real quick just how out of shape you are... Holli and Mason headed back to the car, and Trale and I went off-road for the "treasure." After a few near falls off the nearby cliff's we captured this one and back up the cliff...again, we went. Even Trale had to take a breather after the climb back up.

Found a strange tree hiding a geocache just down the road on a lot of waterfront land. It was at the end of the street and noticed many trees that could've been hiding the cache. After some wondering, I called in reinforcements (my wife) to help me look for it. Actually, I spotted it up a little ways from the acutal coordinates. Peek-a-boo!

Last one for the day was in downtown Gulf Breeze on the other side of the 3-Mile bridge. It was in a park being renovated and there was a lot of construction going on, but we pulled off the road to hunt the cache down. There was a dog park nearby and didn't think twice about it, until after I found the cache and got back in the car... We got ticks!! I didn't see them until we were a mile or so down the road when I noticed one of the little bugs crawling on my arm.... then on my pants and we pulled over as fast as I could at a nearby gas station. If Holli was driving with a tick on her, we'd been in the ditch already! After de-bugging, we took off again. After having ticks on you, it feels like you have ticks on you everytime you have an itch. Well I did have one more itch, but it was another tick crawling on me... we pulled into the zoo parking lot and nearly stripped looking for more ticks. Thankfully, none of the ticks took a bite and we were all safe.

Another adventurous outing, see you next time with Team GravelShot!

Beating Out The Rain

We almost got rained out this weekend, but we were able to find a little bit of dry time on Sunday afternoon. We went to Niceville to hit a few "treasure" spots.

It was a family effort, Me, Trale, Holli and the baby made our first stop at a cemetary just south of the city limits. Holli led the way with GPSr in hand, keeping an eye on muggles who were browsing headstones. Holli brought us to a tree with a hole about 6 feet up, so I dug around and found a little pill bottle sitting in some water inside the tree. Come to find out it had coordinates to the real treasure box... we had found a multi-cache. After punching the new numbers into my GPSr we made about a 100 hike to the location. I thought I found the right path, but Holli took off on another track and found it right behind the tree! We swapped trinkets and took a really cool Jeep Travel Bug.

Down the road we go to a geocache called "Wasted Waterfront." Story reads that a strip mall took up land that would easily go for millions. We drive within 20 feet of it, jump out of the car for a peek at what the next cache holds for us. I walked right past it (as usual). Holli says, "What's this?" Kicked a pipe sticking in the ground and found it... it was the PVC pipe! She's 2 for 2 today. Indeed some good land taken up by a furniture store.

Up a little ways, we were going to visit the "Rich People" cache. I got the joke as soon as we pulled in to Po'Folks Restaurant. This one was right behind the restaurant under a light pole cover. The workers were changing shifts, so we had to wait for the Po-Muggles left.

Time for an ice cream pit stop at our favorite restaurant in Niceville, Dairy Queen. To the delight of our oldest, Trale, of course! I enjoyed a treat I haven't in many years...a butterscotch dipped ice cream cone. They went away for a long time... maybe it's making a comeback.

Our last one of the day was a tricky one, just because getting to it was a little tricky. I found a little road near the highway that went back to a water treatment plant, but that was the best way to get in I found out. The cache was located near a little bridge over a creek. It was a very calming place; very quiet, kinda swampy. This cache was an ammo can right under the bridge. There was a crane on the other side of the bridge getting a nap. Trale was able to walk right up to it. The bird was used to the passersby or just enjoying a lazy Sunday.

I'm on my way to Memphis this weekend to visit St. Jude Children's Hospital for a radio station conference. I plan to carve out some time to do some geocaching! Lots of micros! I hope to find the microcache right in front on Graceland when we stop by. Watch this space next week for an update! I'm scoping out a location for my first cache now as I type. I'm also working on a website for Team GravelShot that will include this blog and other fun stuff coming soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

All the best!
-Todd
Team GravelShot